Choosing appropriate ornamentation

The Prelude of the Bach suite on second stage ends with two chords (V/V and V for those of you who are interested) prolonged by fermatas, followed by a short coda. Historical tradition has it that in such cases the performer was expected to ornament the chords in order to 1) prolong the harmony and 2) show off a bit. Elizabeth has been playing around with ideas for embellishments for these two chords for quite a while now...long enough to be slightly frustrated with her indecision. During her most wonderful fortnight of masterclasses at the Moulin d'Andé with Helga Storck, it was suggested that she just come up with several cadenzas for this passage, sit down, play them all, and then decide, instead of just waffling aimlessly about the V/V chord. So... over the past few weeks, I have helped her make a small collection of cadenzas from which to chose. To the ideas that she already had, I added four of my own, and even asked my ex-counterpoint teacher, Stéphane Delplace, to help. He contributed two to the cause - on a side note, he's quite the expert in Bach's music and is able to sit down and practically improvise fugues. He has an amazingly satirical sense of humor - can you image a fugue on the pink panther theme? Look no further.

This evening before our show, Elizabeth played two that she had chosen and we discussed the pros and cons of each one, transformed them, mixed and matched them up, played them forwards and backwards (really), and finally came up with a wonderful solution. I will not give it away :) but will say that it is really perfect - very subtle and refined, but appropriately stylistic of the Baroque.

When one is essentially making notes up to be played in an "empty" spot in Bach's music (what sacrilege! Even the rests in Bach's music are not empty!), it can't be just anything that pops into the brain. Music is so full of spoken and unspoken rules based on history (or what we know of it), tradition, and simple gut feeling, that no matter what choice you make you are bound to upset someone. It is not out of the question that Elizabeth may get comments like: "Why do you add notes? In an international competition you should follow the score to the letter!" or "Do you not realize that this suite was written for lute? Your cadenza should sound like a characteristic lute flourish!" or even "This cadenza of yours is simply too minimal, and not at all historically correct". Which brings me to my point: when preparing a competition like this one, obviously you have to cater to what you think the jury wants to hear if you want to please them. But that means second guessing them - would they rather hear what you think they want to hear, or would they rather be convinced by your performance because you have thought it out to the last detail and are convinced by it yourself? Obviously, the second choice is more risky, but it is the only way that true artistry can shine through, unhindered.